Unknown Victim by Kay Hadashi (top 10 books of all time txt) 📗

pushed him back down again with a foot. Once he was down, she stood on one of his arms to keep him there. “Lay still! The police are almost here!”

It was a little white lie, one she hoped was believable. She prayed for the sound of a siren, any siren. She had no idea if her call had ever been answered by the 9-1-1 dispatcher, and if it had, if help was on its way. It could take some time locating her using the GPS chip in her phone, and she had a struggling maniac and an unconscious girl to contend with. At least she hoped the girl was only unconscious, and not…

In the next moment, it didn’t really matter. When she felt the hard edge of something club her in the back of the head, the moment went dark.

Chapter Nineteen

When Gina came to, she was on her back. She had no idea of where she was or why her head hurt so much. Holding her head with both hands, she felt a goose egg at the back, and a smudge of blood on her cheek.

“What happened?”

She put her hands on the ground to push herself up. She was on asphalt and didn’t know why. Getting to a sitting position, she felt dizzy. She held her head again, trying to figure out what happened and where she was. There were a few flashes in her mind, of sitting in the Datsun, and a fight of some sort. She reached for her hip, but her sidearm wasn’t there.

Groping at her clothes, she looked down. Not even her holster was there. No belt, no uniform, no Kevlar vest, nothing but a skirt and blouse.

Still trying to figure out this new world she was in, she heard a woman crying. She looked to a few feet away and saw a girl on her side. Her clothes were torn. She seemed familiar.

“Are you okay?” Gina asked, still groping the goose egg at the back of her head.

The girl cursed Gina.

“Same to you. Any idea what happened?”

“Don’t you know?” the girl nearly screamed.

“I’m kinda woozy over here, so you might want to lay off the attitude, okay?”

“I’m hurt,” the girl said, before starting to cry again.

Gina got up and after getting her legs working right, went to sit with the crying girl. There were no cars in the parking lot they were in, not even her squad car. Or did she have a crappy pickup truck? Things still weren’t making much sense. “Where are you hurt?”

“My face,” she whimpered. “He tore my clothes.”

Gina tried covering the girl’s chest with pieces of torn blouse. “Who did?”

“That bartender. He said we were going for a drive and stop at the beach.”

Another flash of information hit Gina’s mind, something about a bartender. “Did he touch you anywhere else?”

“I think I was out cold for a while.” The girl felt her clothes. “I don’t think he did anything else. Are the police coming?”

“I don’t know,” Gina said. “I’m not even sure why we’re here or how I got hurt. Or even who you are.”

“Holly,” the girl said quietly. She was beginning to settle now that Gina had her arm around her shoulders. “I knew better than to go back to that bar.”

With the mention of a bar, fragmented memories were beginning to fit together. Gina remembered going to the bar but not going in, instead following Hughes and a girl around in his car for a while. The girl she was comforting must’ve been that same girl. She still couldn’t figure out why they were battered and sitting in a parking lot, or even why she followed them.

“Holly, do you have a phone?”

“It was in my bag.”

“Where’s that?”

“In that guy’s car.”

More clarity. Gina recalled sitting in her Datsun watching the ‘date’ unfold in Hughes’s car, drugs being inhaled, and a punch being thrown. When the last piece of memory came back, albeit hazy, it was of her standing over Hughes, while looking at the unconscious girl in the front seat of his car. Now here they were, sitting alone in the parking lot with no cars anywhere nearby.

“Okay, we can’t stay here,” Gina said. She stood and tried pulling the girl up by the arm.

“Where’d we going?”

“For starters, the hospital would be a good idea.”

“No! I can’t go there!”

“I saw you get punched pretty hard, Holly. It knocked you out. You should get checked out by a doctor. They should check for other injuries, too.”

“I can’t go back there,” Holly said.

Gina wanted to go to some place to get her head checked as much as she wanted the girl to get examined. But in the girl’s present state of mind, that apparently wasn’t happening. When she looked across the street, she saw the Datsun still parked there.

“We’re not staying here,” she said, forcing the girl to stand. “It’s not safe.”

“Where are we going?”

“My house. You can stay there tonight. It’ll be safe.”

“Where do you live?”

“Near the university. You’ll be safe.”

Gina found her phone on the front seat where she’d left it. A call was live, but no one was there for a moment when she spoke. Just as she was about to end the call, she heard a voice on the phone.

“Hello?”

“This is 9-1-1 dispatch. Are you in need of assistance? Are you safe?”

Gina looked at her companion. Holly nodded back.

“I’m fine. I guess I mis-dialed.”

“I’ve sent a squad car to your location. You’re across from Kapalama Park, right?”

“I’m not sure where I am right now, but I don’t need the police.”

Getting off the call with dispatch was harder than she expected, suffering the third degree on why she called and if she was safe. After the call, Gina gave Holly her blouse to wear since she was wearing a tank top beneath hers. Once Gina got the Datsun started, she drove to the end of the alley. Just then, a squad car drove by, its lights flashing but no siren. Acting as nonchalant as she could,